Last night, on the eve of George Bush’s visit to Canada, 1.2 million canadians voted in a contest to select the greatest Canadian of all time. The winner was Tommy Douglas, the father of medicare and one of the furthest left politicians ever elected in Canada. He was certainly the most dyed-in-the-wool socialist who ever led a party (the Commonwealth Cooperative Federation). He formed the first socialist government in North America in 1944 when he became premier of Saskatchewan. He quoted as saying “My friends, watch out for the little fellow with an idea.” I am thinking to myself today …
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Winnipeg, Manitoba I’m here in Winnipeg this week running a series of Open Space workshops at a national Aboriginal Head Start and early childhood education conference. There are something like 1000 people here from all over the country, all of them involved in caring and teaching the youngest children in Aboriginal communities in Canada. We’ve been running short Open Space events to allow people to dialogue with each other in a peer-to-peer learning environment. We’re so hip we even have a wiki! Among the many stories and best practices I’m hearing about here, one has stood out for me. I’ve …
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I’ve been a lifelong fan of radio. I have always listened, whether it was music in my youth or the inimitable CBC in my adult years, or late night classic radio reruns or Toronto Maple Leaf games. I have produced and hosted radio shows at Trent Radio in Peterborough Ontario. And when the internet really got going, I started using it as the best radio in the world. I’ve always thought that radio was a much more intimate medium than TV. For one thing, anyone could do it. Building a transmitter isn’t that hard and when you finally get on …
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A quote from Albert Einstein courtesy of Flemming Funch: “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole …
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Happy Thanksgiving to all of my American friends and colleagues. And, from a First Nations perspective, a hearty “you’re welcome!”